Since I sold the 50 Summicron-R today I decided to do a little test before delivering it to it's new owner.

The test is not very scientific, I borrowed a doll from my daughter and shot it from a tripod and using live-view 10x zoom to determine focus. The focus was set on the right eye. The lighting is just the tungsten bulbs at home shot in AV mode. Images were imported into Lightroom and the only adjustments there are white-balance and exposure. The images from the Leica lens were little brighter (longer exposures) so I added to the exposure of the OM images to match (tiny bit). The f/1.4 shot is done by putting the aperture lever someplace between the f/1.2 and f/2 click stops like suggested above. And my wife wants you to ignore the laundry on the sofa in the back.

What I read from the images is that both lenses preform pretty well. To me the Leica has better color but it's hard to decide considering the mixed lighting. It's also pretty hard to decide between them when it comes to contrast and shadow/highlight transitions because of the different exposures. Even the bokeh looks similar!

The new owner of the 50 Summicron will get a great lens. As I told before I decided to keep the OM 50/1.2 for the f/1.2. I also do think it's pretty good wide-open fur such a fast lens and sharpens up quite nicely. It doesn't show in these images but can "glow" at f/1.2 with strong light an high contrast scenes. Still a great lens and one of the best fast 50's.

Hrannar, interesting test. That's a pretty sharp Oly you have there. I agree that somebody is getting a great lens from you. I recently sold my Summicron-R 50 and 90 to a local videographer who uses a RED camera with EF mount. He loves the colour and 'look', and it helps to pay for the 18 ZE that I picked up for Christmas.

hmm, the oly looks slightly better in sharpness, bokeh, and contrast to me. color might be better from the leica but tough call.

adrianb wrote:
Reconsidering i feel stupid for opening this thread and I think I should keep to my Takumar 50mm 1.4 and Jupiter-9, and just keep SHOOTING instead of dreaming of other lenses...

50mm 1.4 takumar is a pretty good lens....

that is probably the best, most sensible course of action. i think the takumar has a nice balance of properties and i'm sure there have been great photographers who shot with it exclusively. that's not the type of advice forums like this are for though...

if i were to limit myself to just one normalish lens it would be the rokkor 58/1.2 (or leica m summilux asph if money didn't matter). for what it's worth, it outperforms the takumar in cross the frame sharpness, bokeh, CA control, color and character (imo). the takumar beats it for central sharpness at f/1.4 and f/2, contrast, and flare resistance.

Agree on the Summicron-R, it never disappoints me, e55 vsn. Even in the OM comparisons above note the delicate highlights and higher colour contrast, seen quite easily in the blue-black wall hanging. skin tones and hair highlight handling. These are the things that matter more to me, and IMO give the image a special look. They are all sharp enough at 50mm.

OP, try to figure out *exactly* what you want first, is my advice, which is worth what you paid for it, hah.

philip_pj wrote:
Agree on the Summicron-R, it never disappoints me, e55 vsn. Even in the OM comparisons above note the delicate highlights and higher colour contrast, seen quite easily in the blue-black wall hanging. skin tones and hair highlight handling. These are the things that matter more to me, and IMO give the image a special look. They are all sharp enough at 50mm.

Another 'dark horse' I have that is both affordable new and very well made, and does very well, is the Voigtlander 58mm f1.4 SLII, around $490 new. It's a Cosina lens, is as good as any of mine in feel/operation and you can see plenty of fine images shot with it, very nice bokeh.

Good 50s need to be good allrounders for most users, and some fast lenses can do this multi-tasking, this Voigt is one of them. It's close to being free of major faults, I must get to fitting a Leitax mount to mine.

philip_pj wrote:
Agree on the Summicron-R, it never disappoints me, e55 vsn. Even in the OM comparisons above note the delicate highlights and higher colour contrast, seen quite easily in the blue-black wall hanging. skin tones and hair highlight handling. These are the things that matter more to me, and IMO give the image a special look. They are all sharp enough at 50mm.

OP, try to figure out *exactly* what you want first, is my advice, which is worth what you paid for it, hah.

I kind of agree that the Leica has something to it, a pop, 3D or what ever you wanna call it. The difference is tiny and might be equaled by some adjustments in post but generally I like the lenses to deliver good raw data. The Summicron is a great lens and performs admirably for its age. It's also pretty cheap for a Leica lens, can be had for $300-350 which is very reasonable price for such a good lens in my opinion.

I had a few 50ish lenses in the past and they were all very different-
I loved the C/Y 1.7 50 for landscapes, it flat out made the sharpest, Zeissiest images and its cheap and small -- which is a big plus.
The famous Rokkor 1.2 58 was my favorite for portraits -- the bokeh when stopped down 1 stop was amazing and it was fun to play with the razor thin DOF.
The OM Zuiko 1.4 50 MC -- kind of a sleeper, I guess. I payed $69 for mine and it was wonderful as an all around lens. Low contrast, classic OM colors and in the case of my lens it was really sharp wide open. Its also tiny, I mean really small -- so it can go with you anywhere. It was the last lens I sold when I went to Nikon.
I also had the cheap Canon 50 and I hated it. The newest Nikon 1.8/50 G is a really good lens, and currently what I am using. I might try the C/V 58 at some point as I kinda miss having a fast lens.
Paul

Hmm, you know that Pentax is quite a good lens. It's a challenge to find something better that does not cost a whole lot more. I also have the C/Y 50/1.4 and an old Leica R 50/2. All of them quite good yet each renders a scene differenty.